China-US talks in Bangkok yield ‘useful’ discussions on Taiwan, other issues: Sullivan

Dialogue on AI could start within a few months after meeting with Wang Yi leads to progress on the issue, US national security official said

Topics covered in the ‘frank’ discussion included instability in the Red Sea, Ukraine war, and the Korean peninsula

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) and Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, held “very useful direct talks” in Bangkok, the American official said. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 11:00pm, 31 Jan 2024Updated: 1:36am, 1 Feb 2024

The US and China made progress in last week’s talks in Thailand on starting a dialogue in “the spring” on the responsible use of artificial intelligence, Washington’s top national security official said late on Tuesday.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said his nine hours of talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also included “very useful direct” talks over Taiwan and frank discussions on instability in the Red Sea, the Ukraine war and the Korean peninsula.

The Bangkok talks on Friday and Saturday were the first high-level meetings between the two wary giants since Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met in November in California.

“Both of us leave feeling that we didn’t agree or see eye to eye on everything but that there was a lot of work to carry forward,” Sullivan told a conference sponsored by the University of California, San Diego and the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Both of us agreed that we would report back to our leaders and we would get them on the phone sooner rather than later,” he added, without providing a date.

Wang Yi, Jake Sullivan and their teams meet in Thailand. Photo: Xinhua

While reviewing the China-US relationship at the conference, Sullivan suggested that Washington is prepared to sanction Beijing over its growing non-lethal support to Moscow, including heavy trucks and other equipment used in the Ukraine war.